


train in the night

by ghostking (damnedtreasure)



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It, Other, Post-Episode: s01e18 Juno Steel and the Final Resting Place, gratuitous use of nureyevian alias generator, rita is full of miracles and goodness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-15 20:45:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,885
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16070990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/damnedtreasure/pseuds/ghostking
Summary: Working in a Private Eye's office means you have to be observant. And after so long being one Juno Steel's secretary, Rita is pretty proud of her observation skills.She saw how her boss got all droopy and solemn and give-me-a-case-so-I-can-run-away-from-my-feelings when that pretty secret agent fellow got arrested, and she saw his hand go to his pocket when he stared off into space sometimes, and she kept seeing him reading a slip of paper over and over, holding it like the wrong touch will crumble it to dust.So she took an opportunity when it presented itself, and picked her boss' pocket.





	train in the night

 

Working in a Private Eye's office means you have to be observant. And after so long being one Juno Steel's secretary, Rita is pretty proud of her observation skills.

She saw how her boss got all droopy and solemn and give-me-a-case-so-I-can-run-away-from-my-feelings when that pretty secret agent fellow got arrested.

She saw his hand go to his pocket when he stared off into space sometimes, and she kept seeing him reading a slip of paper over and over, holding it like the wrong touch will crumble it to dust.

So she took an opportunity that presented itself when she was bustling him back to his apartment after a fight he _really_ shouldn't have picked, Mister Steel, really! That gal was so big and scary like _ooh!_ Like _Serenity Vale_ from Wars On Callisto! And she argued him into eating something moderately healthy, and bundled him into his bed and threatened him into sleeping. "Now don't you dare come in early like I know you want to, you gotta _sleep_ , Mister Steel, and a good healthy amount too-"

"I'm fine, Rita,"

"You really ain't, but that's what the sleep is for, so sleep!"

"I might have an easier time of that if I had some quiet, Rita-"

"Sure, sure," she said, and _then_ she put the note back where she found it in his coat when she had picked his pocket. "G'night, boss!"

"Good _night,_ Rita."

She closed the door behind her, and then released all the pent-up energy she'd had since she read that note while Juno was distracted. She was careful not to wake him, but ooh!! Such a romantic note! Like something out of a stream!

She'd known that Agent Glass fella wasn't so much of a Dark Matters agent, he looked like a stream star in that uniform and that was how she knew he was a fake, because no one looked like that in a Dark Matters uniform unless they were faking it, along with the shoes of course, but this? Ooh! A master thief that gives his secret identity to a P.I.!

Now, she didn't like some parts of that note, like the fact that this Nureyev guy was leaving her boss at all and-- well hold on, that name sounded familiar.

Nureyev, Nureyev, Pe-ter Nur-ey-ev... Right! That's where she'd heard it! Franny had started watching documentaries that one time, and Rita didn't mind them, really, but they just didn't have enough _drama_ for her, so Franny had sent her this one stream that wasn't a documentary, but it was one of those ones that was based on a true story, but not in the way that some horror streams were, this one was really a real story, and it was so fascinating, all about this one outer-rim place that was owned by this one city that was just real bad, just terrible, killing people for stuff like jaywalking, which was ridiculous because who didn't jaywalk? Well, people who were crossing seventeen-lane highways didn't jaywalk, but four-lanes was easy, and not even the HCPD gets you for jaywalking unless they can't even get you on taxes, and by that point you're usually dead anyways but one city doing all that killing for tiny crimes! And there was this revolution, and a guy who _disappeared_ and it was all based on that one guy from Brahma that everyone there whispers about!

Peter Nureyev!

But this guy couldn't be... Huh. A quick look into it and it turns out that while Rex Glass had been impossible to track down, she'd tried earlier because she always did with people who were working with her boss, Peter Nureyev was fairly easy to find. Or, at least the stories on him were.

Rita... Wasn't sure she liked this guy. He hurt her boss, after all, and he seemed pretty dangerous. But Mister Steel was pretty dangerous too, and Juno could use something nice in his life.

Not that Juno would let the nice things happen, Mister Steel was stubborn and a constant trial for Rita's poor nerves, because he just refused to let himself have nice things.

But... Well, this Nureyev guy seemed to be across the System from here, so there wasn't much that could be done. Didn't expect such a high-class thief, practically a _stream star,_  to go and work for an anthropologist of all things...

She made a note to keep tabs on him, though, just in case.

So when one of her background programs set off a dinging sound, Rita got worried. She had a few programs to alert her when certain people did certain things, because Mister Steel pissed off a lot of people and he deserved a little warning when one of those people were making ready to get even or something. And she deserved a little notice that things were going to go all sideways. But this alert was for- Now how did he do that? Oh, this Nureyev guy was good... Also maybe bad because he was in Mister Steel's apartment and that could be bad. Could be good too, but Rita didn't like taking chances like that.

And then she got a comms message.

That comms message made her very angry. And very worried.

So she maybe did a little more research into the anthropologist lady. And maybe a did little more hacking than Dark Matters liked her to do in her day-to-day life. But at least the agent who called was that Sasha Wire lady, Rita only had to say that Juno had left a worrying comms message and run away with a thief and Agent Wire said she'd turn a blind eye, which was real good because for an anthropologist this Miasma sure was paranoid.

She was so close, _so close_ to figuring out where Mister Steel was when he just... disappeared. And that wasn't good. Not good at all. Because Miasma had disappeared too.

The couple of weeks after that were kind of a blur for Rita. And that hadn't happened since high school when she- well. It usually meant she had too much caffeine and too little sleep. She remembers talking to Agent Wire again, and Agent Wire being very stern and disapproving. That probably meant that Rita had done something Dark Matters _really_ didn't like. Oops.

But she'd found Mister Steel! Kind of. Well, an alert she'd set for Nureyev-related things went off.

Mister Steel had checked in to a clinic.

No, one of the aliases she'd ascribed to Nureyev did. And the record showed two people so Mister Steel was at a clinic. Which was good.

She was going to tear Nureyev a new one if Juno was hurt badly, but she waited for her boss to call.

Then they checked out of the clinic, and into a hotel.

No anthropologists or anything this time, so he oughta call.

He didn't call.

So then she was marching up the stairs of the hotel, stupid elevator needed a key card, and she could fake that, she could, but Franny kept saying things about healthy bodies and healthy minds so Rita grumbled and took the stairs. Probably best not to risk setting off any alarms.

She stopped outside the door of the hotel room. Because Juno was in the doorway.

Oh.

"Mister Steel, I'm very glad you're recovering so well enough to get all-" she waves a hand to encompass the very obvious signs of a fun night- "but you better have been ducking out to make a call to me to let me know that you're alive and alright and not dead because of some crazy anthropology Martian woman!"

"Juno?" She heard a faint call from the room behind Juno.

"Is that him?" She tried to peek around him, but the room was real dark so all she could see was someone on a rumpled-up bed.

"What?" Juno's voice got all scratchy the way it did when he was trying not to be emotional. Rita decided she'd ignore that, out of courtesy.

"The guy you've been pining after ever since he left a note and a name, obviously."

"Pining is _not_ the word-"

"Well it sure looked like pining to me, Mister Steel, but what do I know, I'm just a secretary," Rita knew lots about pining. "But is that him though?"

"I- yeah. Uh. Yeah."

"Right." She pushed past Juno and marched into the hotel room, stopping just before the bed with her hands on her hips. "Mister Nureyev, I'm a big fan of your work but that is just gonna have to wait for a moment because I am _pretty_ angry with you!"

Nureyev blinked up at her from the bed. "Ah?" He looked to Juno, who looked sheepish, good. "Juno?"

Juno shakes his head. Rita is so proud that he's learning how to pick his battles.

"You! You swan in from who knows where in the galaxy, and you take Mister Steel to a big fancy casino and that's fine, he deserves pretty people taking him to nice places! But then you hijack the fastest train in the world with him which is fine but I'd like more notice than 'I might not come back _ever_!' And Mister Steel is good at getting out of bad situations and so are you apparently, but then the two of you disappear! Poof! Completely off the radar! And the only clues I had to go off of was your employer and just as I'm narrowing down where she took you and him guess who checks into a clinic! An Aster Orion and guest! And I figure, oh, good, they're outta the thick of it, one of you two will call Juno's friends who have been _looking for him_ for _weeks_! But NO! Because then Nyx and Calla Bliss check in to this room and I still got no word on whether he's dead or not, and so I'm here and I've got _words_ for you, Mister Nureyev."

"Well-" Oh no, oh no, she is _not_ done!

"I ain't finished! When you left the first time he was pining away and drinking more and taking on way too much work at once, but all of that I can deal with, I've got practice, see? But then you come back and he's gone, and now he's got one eye and he looked like a kicked puppy trying to sneak outta here, so I don't trust you with him!"

"Rita-"

"Not now, Mister Steel! I'm angry with you too, because it sure looked like you were running away from something good just because you think you don't deserve it and I know we've had this conversation-"

"It's hardly a conversation if it's just you yelling at me!"

"Fine, this lecture, whatever, same point, you're stubborn and difficult and don't think you deserve to be loved, but tough! There's folk who love you and you gotta quit trying to sabotage your own happiness!"

"I- hold on," Nureyev frowns. "There's quite a bit in that that's important but first of all, how do you know that name?"

"Oh, it was easy, I just picked Mister Steel's pocket after the first month he kept carrying that note around so I could read it, and then I did some looking, see, cause I recognized it from this stream that was based on what all happened in Brahma, and I thought _no_ it couldn't be but then I did some looking and _yes_ it was! And then I started looking through Rex Glass' stuff because you looked mighty similar, and it took a long while but I had a whole bunch of names and identities that didn't link at all to each other and were so far separated from Peter Nureyev but I did some calling around and--"

"Rita," Juno started again, more of a sigh than anything else.

"Impressive," Nureyev said, "And I would like to sincerely apologize for not contacting you when we had found safety. I think we were both a little distracted with freedom."

"I still don't trust you with him, and I don't like people who hurt my friends, alright?"

"Incredibly so." His expression softened somewhat and he looked over at Mister Steel. "I am glad he has someone who looks out for him."

"Yeah, yeah. She's not so bad. And Rita, I'm, I'm sorry about the whole message thing."

"Sure, boss, I get it, and we'll have words later but I'm getting the itchy feeling I get whenever you get all," she waves a hand at him and made her broody-Juno face, "I'm-Juno-Steel-and-my-happiness-is-secondary-to-everyone-elses-so-I'm-gonna-sabotage-all-these-relationships-" She has had a long time to practice her Mister Steel impression "- and Mister Nureyev over there seemed mighty surprised that you were leaving so-"

"Rita-"

"So tell me you're not running away from a good thing just because you think he don't deserve to be tied to you or whatever and I'll leave, but Boss..." She gave him a Look.

Juno didn't look at her Look. He looked anywhere but her Look. He didn't look at Mister Nureyev either.

"I'm not running away from a good thing because I think he doesn't deserve to be tied to me or whatever, there, happy?"

"Mister Steel, you know I don't like it when you lie to me, you know it makes me feel as if my position in the workplace is-"

"Rita, please."

She crossed her arms. "No! I'm not leaving until you tell me why you're sneaking out in the middle of the night."

Juno sighed. "I, look. I." He crossed his arms, and his shoulders came up around his ears. "I can't leave Hyperion City, okay?"

"Okay...?" Rita narrowed her eyes. That wasn't all of it, was it. She knew that, she knew about his attachment to the city, and she knew she was missing something else.

"It was a... I really want to. I really do." His voice goes all soft. "It'd be a good life."

"But you can't leave," Mister Nureyev said, a sad understanding smile on his face. "I understand, Juno."

"You don't, though-"

"Then I don't." Mister Nureyev shrugged, casual as can be. "But I understand why someone might want to stay home, in a place that's objectively, kind of terrible, but it's home, so you have to stay. I can understand loving your home, at least, Juno."

Rita could see the gears spinning in her boss' head. She didn't like all the darkness up in that head of his, she tried all the time to get some brightness up in there, and finally, finally some of it was sticking, it seemed like. She hoped it stuck around for a while.

"Oh. Yeah. Okay."

"Miss Rita, if you'd give us some privacy? I think... If Juno would be okay with it that is, I think that he and I would like to talk."

She looks to her boss. Juno looks conflicted, like he's still fighting that part of him that wants to lash out and run away from the good things life sends his way. She's glad when his shoulders drop and he nods.

"Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. I'd like that."

Rita nods decisively. "Okay. But if you're not back tomorrow, you're calling me, or I'm coming after you again, Boss, I'm not losing you to some crazy, I dunno, paleontologist or something."

"Alright. You have a good rest of your night then, Rita."

"You too, Mister Steel. And Mister Nureyev?"

"...Yes?"

"You don't take any of his self-sabotaging. And if you hurt him you're gonna find it real hard to do your thieving and conning, got it?"

"Got it. Thank you, Rita." He smiles and he's looking more at Juno than her, and that's fine, she gets it. Mister Steel is a pretty lady. She'll allow it. She'll have more time to get the idea through his head later.

She leaves them there, closing the hotel door on the sight of them just staring at each other. It's real romantic, but she doesn't hack the hotel security feeds, that'd be an invasion of privacy and she promised Franny that she wouldn't do that so much anymore.

All in all, she's pretty satisfied with how the night went. She hadn't even had to hack into any shady governments at all! Agent Wire should be pleased about that. She might have to later, depending on how Mister Steel looks the next morning, but she thinks that's not going to be much of an issue. Mister Nureyev looked pretty far gone on Juno. That's good. He needed more people to remind him that he was loved. It was hard, sometimes, trying to convince him of that fact.

Oh! She was gonna miss her stream if she didn't hurry! Then Franny would be ahead of her and Franny was just the _worst_ with spoilers and Rita _really_ wanted to know what was gonna happen next with the doctor and the poet and the kidnapping lord and the weird plant, could they find a way to triumph over the differences between them and the scorn of their society-?

"Franny, Franny, you gotta pause that right now, you gotta, I was out doing a thing and I'll tell you about it later but you gotta pause your stream and wait for me! No I was not! I was helping..."

**Author's Note:**

> Is this just me wanting a happy middle for these disaster gays? Maybe so!  
> title from Train In The Night by The Bombadils which is just such a good song.  
> beta'd by the amazing @krshush on tumblr, who is the one who dragged me into this fandom  
> come scream at me about penumbra on tumblr! im @damnedtreasure


End file.
